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The Sources of Plutarch's Alexander

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

J. Enoch Powell
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Extract

At the outset of the parallel lives of Alexander and Caesar, Plutarch warns his readers that what he offers them is biography, not history, and that consequently he will attend more to details which reveal character than to the great events. These he will either treat summarily or even omit entirely. Both the plan and the matter of the Life of Alexander are in harmony with this preface. The first ten chapters, which bring the story down to Alexander's accession, teem with anecdote and characterisation; then, after a rapid sketch of the wars in Illyria and Greece, the main narrative begins in ch. 15, with the crossing of the Hellespont. From thence to the end the biography is a historical sketch with digressions at intervals to illustrate various sides of Alexander's character. Thus the appointment of Aristotle as tutor to Alexander is followed by a disquisition on his attitude to learning and philosophy in general (7–8); the treatment of the captive women at Issus provokes a discussion (21, 5–23) on Alexander's continence, and subsequently on his temperance and habits of life. The journey to Siwah is followed by a general discussion of Alexander's views on his own deification (28), while the longest of such digressions, occasioned by the burning of the palace at Persepolis, deals with Alexander's generosity and his attention and loyalty to friends (39–42, 4). The common characteristics of these digressions are their disregard of chronology, their anecdotic content, and the prominence of the Letters of Alexander among the sources named in them; indeed, the only other sources appearing by name are Onesicritus (8, 2), Aristobulus (21, 9) and the official diaries (23, 4), each once.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , 1939 , pp. 229 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1939

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References

1 The concluding remark of Arrian's preface, that when a critic has read all the extant histories of Alexander he will no longer wonder that the author has increased their number, refers not to the thoroughness or originality of Arrian's research, but to the brevity and skill of his narrative.

2 Note that here and above p. 3 ὑπέρπονος (? ὑπέρπονος) and ἐκ κόπων in Plutarch correspond to καματηρός and ὐπὸ καμάτου in Arrian. The latter root was presumably the one used in the source.

3 This is the place to allude to 328 E, a passage to which Mr. Tarn has devoted much attention (Greeks in Bactria and India, 48 ff., repeated AJP 1939, 57Google Scholar). In the MSS it runs . It is self-evident that Καύκασος is here as corrupt as the words which follow it. Were it sound, a proper name parallel with Ἀλεξάνδρειαν and the rest would be required for πόλιν Ἐλλάδα, and παροικοῦσαν (so Reiske) must have been absent. The text was originally a generalising conclusion such as . The preceding list moves from west to east, naming an important Greek town in each of four countries taken at random, Σογδιανή being a slip for Δραγγιανή. See now what Mr. Tarn makes of the passage. By a sweep of Ockham's razor (‘it is a sound canon of historical method in dealing with ancient history that sources are not to be multiplied beyond necessity’) he has concluded (p. 46) that ‘from Trogus source [for Parthia and the Farther East] must ultimately come also the notices of the Farther East in Plutarch and many scattered items in late Hellenistic writers.’ The source is then dated c. 87–80 B.C., on the ground of its contents as deduced from Justin and Ptolemy. Plutarch mor. 328 E is ex hypothesi derived from it, and held to be a list of ‘the capitals, or chief Greek cities, of the four civilised kingdoms E. of the Euphrates in the 1st century B.C.’ Even this view, to say nothing of the startling misstatement that ‘Prophthasia is never mentioned elsewhere subsequently to its foundation, and this is the one hint in Greek literature of its importance’ (cf. Strabo 11, 514; 15, 723; Ptol. 6, 19, 41; 8, 25, 8; Pliny 6, 17, 21; 23, 25; Steph. Byz. s.v. φραδα), is not without difficulty to be maintained. Seistan had no importance until after the assumed date, while Alexandria of the Caucasus was the capital of a kingdom only until c. 100 B.C. Seleucia is mentioned for its importance, although not the capital of Arsacid Parthia, and yet the omission of Antioch is described as ‘only too natural, because it was no longer the capital of anything.’

4 So Weber, L., de Plutarcho Alexandri laudatore, Genethliacon Gottingense, Halle, 1888, 84–96Google Scholar.

5 Beloch (III 2, 39), who briefly speaks of the biography as based on ‘eine gelehrte alexandrinische Biographie’ and inspection of ‘some of the sources used by Arrian,’ identifies the biographer as ‘perhaps Satyrus’. The date would suit, but nothing else; for the style and content of the βιὸς Εύριπίδου is totally different from that of our variorum source. Satyrus was also suggested by A. Schaefer, l. citand.

6 The best work on the subject is Schoene, A., De rerum Alexandri magni scriptorum, inprimis Arriani et Plutarchi, fontibus. Analecta philologica historica I, Leipzig, 1870Google Scholar, where the common source of Arrian and Plutarch is already detected. Schoene was reviewed by A. Schaefer, Neue Jahrbb., 1870, 433–446, without substantial result. I have no access to Vogel, , Die Quellen Plutarch's in der Biographie Alexanders des Grossen, Progr. ColmarGoogle Scholar; Koehler, , Eine Quellenkritik zur Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen, Leipzig, 1879Google Scholar; Laudien, , Über die Quellen zur Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen in Diodor, Curtius und Plutarch, Königsberg Pr., 1874Google Scholar.